"a growing body of economic literature suggests that
anti-growth sentiment... is a major factor in creating a stagnant and less equal
American economy.

...Unlike past decades, when people of different
socioeconomic backgrounds tended to move to similar areas, today, less-skilled
workers often go where jobs are scarcer but housing is cheap, instead of heading
to places with the most promising job opportunities according to research
by Daniel Shoag, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and Peter Ganong, also
of Harvard.

One reason they’re not migrating to places with better job
prospects is that rich cities like San Francisco and Seattle have gotten so
expensive that working-class people cannot afford to move there. Even if they
could, there would not be much point, since whatever they gained in pay would be
swallowed up by rent."

Stop and rejoice. This is, after all, the New York Times,
not the Cato Review. One might expect high housing prices to get blamed on
developers, greed, or something, and the solution to be government-constructed
housing, "affordable" housing mandates, rent controls, low-income housing
subsidies (which protect incumbent low-income people, not those who want to move
in to get better jobs) and even more restrictions.

No. The Times, the Obama Administration,
California Governor Gerry Brown, have figured out that zoning laws are to blame,
and they're making social stratification and inequality
worse.”

David Farrar of Kiwiblog also noticed this piece, and his comment:

This is the major factor in house prices in Auckland. Labour,
National, the Productivity Commission, the NZ Initiative etc all agree. We just
need the Auckland Council to listen - and if they won't, to have Parliament
over-rule them.